history of john's hopkins medicine. when we say he wrote the book, it is a very heavy, big book. how long did this take to you write? >> 3 1/2 years. >> and reaction so far? >> has been very good, very good. >> why did you write this book? >> there hadn't been a major history of john's hopkins for more than 20 years and a great deal has happened over the past 20 years in american medicine and at hopkins itself and also we were in the midst of one of the largest hospital reconstruction projects in the the united states, the building of the new clinical towers at john's hopkins hospital when opened earlier this year so they wanted a book to come out in conjunction with that. >> to illustrate what it is they've done, how the hospital's expanded. >> and all of the new developments over the past 20 which include the winning of two nobel prizes, several presidential medals of freedom, several national medals of science, several mccarthy genius awards, quite a lot. >> obviously hopkins gets its reputation because of the many f